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0 pointsmicrotonal7y ago0 comments

This is fixable on android / chromeos by specifically having applications request access to data which is isolated from arbitrary code execution (e.g. "user files" which don't include .bashrc). I think flatpak may need to ultimately have a custom file-browser where the user can "share" subsets of files into a sandbox and then patch applications to use that file browser... or to otherwise build a new filesystem abstraction.

It does have that through portals:

https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal

If you Flatpak a Gtk+ 3 or modern Qt application you get portals for free. E.g. I packaged a Qt application and I am not sharing the home directory - when the user opens a file it uses the Qt/KDE portal (similarly to macOS, ChromeOS, etc.).

As far as I understand the problem is that portals are only available for Gtk+ and recent Qt versions. Some of the applications that the posts mentions use toolkits that probably don't support portals (Java JDK, wxWidgets, etc.).

The situation for Linux is a bit different than e.g. macOS, where practically everything uses Cocoa and Apple could just throw the switch.

So, for applications that do not use vanilla Gtk+ or Qt they still need to make the home directory visible or they would not be Flatpack'able.

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int_19h7y ago

The situation is similar on Win10 (and the approach is also the same - sandbox apps have to use a certain API to invoke the file browser and get access to some files or folders).

But apps that don't do that because they're too old, just don't get access to the Store... or at least they didn't use to. Now you can ship non-sandboxed Win32 apps through the Store, and it doesn't even seem particularly obvious which ones are and which ones aren't. Windows 10 S only lets you install the sandboxed ones, but how many people use that?

So basically Windows couldn't solve that - the users ultimately decided that they care about stuff working as it did more than they did about security. I don't see why it would be any different on Linux.

microtonalOP7y ago

I don't see why it would be any different on Linux.

There will always be legacy applications that will stay on old toolkits and they cannot fully benefit from sandboxing.

However, a lot of widely-used Linux applications that are on older toolkits are currently working on upgrades. E.g. Inkscape and The Gimp will be Gtk+3 applications. There are often other carrots, such as proper support for scaling for HiDPI screens, etc.

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